The manufacture and sale of sportswear entails a significant number of new product designs each year for manufacturers, which are essential to keep pace with the latest developments on the market or to promote development itself. Such designs comprise shoes, textiles and accessories in a plurality of models, designs, production options, coloring, sizing, etc., for example. In this regard, most of the new products are designed, modeled and tested digitally by 3D CAD/FEA (finite element analysis) systems today.
In order to bring a new product on the market, samples are first made manually from the digital design drafts, typically in factories located at a different place than the development department that is responsible for the product design. As a result, it is often only after shipment, often via ship containers, and receipt of the real samples that the product designers are able to further optimize their digital drafts and return them to the factories. This process is repeated until the samples have the desired functionality, design, cost and quality and may then be released for serial production in the factories. This process often takes several weeks to months until a result is reached, and the entire delivery chain is very inflexible. Thus, a manufacturer is only able to react slowly to fast-moving, fashion market trends and demands. The benefit regarding speed gained by the use of CAD/FEA systems throughout is lost by the overall slow production processes by the factories all over the world.
In certain designs, conventional manufacturing apparatuses are often only able to process flat workpieces. Therefore, a three-dimensional model generated in the computer has to be projected into a two-dimensional plane first, which may result in undesired material warping, buckling and distortions in the finished product.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide manufacturing methods and production means that allow to prompt, at least partially automatic, and/or local manufacture of a plurality of different prototypes and the like in order to proceed from the “idea to the product” more rapidly. In doing so, it should be possible for the three-dimensional models designed on the computer to be transformed into corresponding three-dimensional products as directly as possible. Further, it is desirable that the manufacture of individual items, in particular customized individual items, small-scale series, or series be possible in an uninterrupted manner and be freely scalable so that the production of a (small-scale) series may be merely x times a single production step.